Tickets for The Scorpions Moscow Live Concert Nearly Sold Out

Almost all the tickets for The Scorpions concert that will take place on March 2 in the Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia have been sold.

Popularity: 5% [?]

• Posted in: Russia, Kremlin, Culture, Music
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Russian Radical Youth Group Protests Changes to Electoral Law in Central Moscow

Protesters from a radical youth organization rallied outside Russia’s lower house of parliament Tuesday, slamming lawmakers for a series of electoral changes that have markedly strengthened the Kremlin’s hold over the country’s political life, The Associated Press reports.

Popularity: 3% [?]

• Posted in: Russia, Kremlin, Russian Youth, Protest
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Skating Rink Opens in Moscow’s Red Square

The skating rink was unveiled in Moscow’s Red Square, Sunday, December 3, 2006.

Popularity: 4% [?]

• Posted in: Russia, Kremlin, Red Square, Skating, Ice Dance
• Comments: 0

Angolan President Arrives in Moscow

Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos arrives in Moscow for a three-day visit Monday with an agenda dominated by bilateral economic and international issues, Kremlin press office reported in Monday.

Russia has been seeking to re-establish contacts with African states, including oil-rich Angola, under President Vladimir Putin. The president and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made separate tours of the continent this fall, signaling a fresh interest in business cooperation since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which supplied arms and other goods to Africa in the ideological standoff with the West.

Russia is currently Angola’s 10th largest partner, according to Rossiiskaya Gazeta, a government daily. But meeting with Lavrov in September, Soviet-educated Dos Santos urged more intensive cooperation with Russia, above all in the development of new iron ore, oil and gas deposits, and space.

The Kremlin press office said: “A set of bilateral documents is expected to be signed at the meeting.” Other areas of cooperation between Russia and Angola include diamond production, power engineering, and fisheries. Russia’s largest diamond producer, Alrosa, has about a 40% stake in the Catoca diamond joint venture in Angola, which produces around 6 million carats of crude diamonds a year.

Russian companies are helping the country build the largest hydropower plant in the region, with a capacity of 520 mWt, and are in talks on the construction of power lines. Russian fishing companies also catch up to 25,000 metric tons of sea products a year in Angolan waters.

Angola has shown brisk economic development exploiting its vast mineral resources since the government signed a ceasefire agreement with American-backed UNITA rebels in 2002, following 27 years of bloody civil war. The country, which was in ruins several years ago, plans to export up to 2 million barrels of oil annually, largely to the United States and China, by 2008, RIA Novosti reports.

Popularity: 2% [?]

• Posted in: Russia, Vladimir Putin, International Relations, Moscow, Kremlin, Sergei Lavrov, Africa, Angola, Jose Eduardo Dos Santos
• Comments: 0

Roman Abramovich May Quit Russian Governor Job

Roman Abramovich, Russia’s richest man and owner of the English soccer club Chelsea, is planning to quit as a regional governor next year, Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday.

During his governorship of Chukotka, Abramovich has invested hundreds of millions of dollars and his close Kremlin ties to fight poverty in the bitterly cold and largely deserted region in Russia’s far east across the Bering Strait from Alaska.

“Abramovich is planning to initiate his resignation because he believes he has fulfilled all his tasks,” Interfax quoted an unnamed source in the regional administration as saying. “It’s on everyone’s lips in Chukotka.”

The source told Interfax Abramovich could tender his resignation in December to leave his job from the New Year.

the Reuters news agency reported that Kremlin and the Chukotka administration officials could not be immediately contacted for comments. Abramovich’s spokesman said by telephone: “I have no information about this.”

In the years of Vladimir Putin’s presidency, marked with a campaign against ’oligarchs’ —- Russia’s super-rich accused by the Kremlin of neglecting national interests —- Abramovich has become a widely cited positive example of a different approach.

Last year, when Kremlin-led campaign against billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky landed him in jail for fraud and tax evasion, rumours flew that Abramovich was planning to quit his Chukotka job and leave Russia.

But within months Putin re-appointed Abramovich, who has property in London and spends much of his time there, as governor for another five years in a move viewed by analysts as a stamp of the Kremlin’s confidence in him.

Interfax quoted analysts close to the Kremlin as saying that if Abramovich decided to leave this time, his move would not be motivated by politics.

“Normally, he does not have political problems,” head of Politika thin tanks, Vyacheslav Nikonov, said. “Almost certainly this is personal, there is nothing political about this.”

The Russian edition of Forbes magazine this year estimated Abramovich’s wealth — mostly from oil and aluminium assets —- at $18.3 billion.

Popularity: 4% [?]

• Posted in: Russia, Kremlin, Chukotka, Roman Abramovich
• Comments: 1